


Fragments from an Inferno

by pleasancekrillick



Category: F.E.A.R. (Video Games)
Genre: Bad Ending, Body Horror, End of the World, F/M, Ignores the third one, Memories, Mind Manipulation, Non-Linear Narrative, Psychological Horror, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 12:57:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18334859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasancekrillick/pseuds/pleasancekrillick
Summary: Michael Becket meets his fate.





	Fragments from an Inferno

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Toy Soldiers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/434592) by [arienai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai). 



_ I must have your soul; must have it mine, and mine forever. _

_ Matthew Lewis _

***

Michael Becket ran as soon as her back was turned, sprinting into a broken landscape of shattered monuments, fallen towers, and piles of debris that stretched on endlessly—waves of smoldering masonry rolling ever onwards to a scarlet horizon. He picked his way through a forest of crooked rebars jutting out of cracked asphalt, then clambered over the side of what might’ve been an upturned bus. He was tempted to stay up there, to try and make out any landmarks to use as frames of reference, but she was already gaining on him, blindly hurtling over the bleak expanse in his direction. He felt her: a throbbing pain crawling up his spine and sending tentative feelers up into his brain. Hopping down to the street and staggering through the pain, he found that he was penned in. Heaps of wreckage blocked both ends of the street, and he faced a giant, scarred wall that towered over him. Following it’s scorched bricks upwards, his eyes fell on the swirling sky: a mad conflagration of bright hues flowing across his vision; streaks of red, orange, and yellow clashed and intermixed before being cast away by an unseen and unfelt force. There was no wind, of course, no air either. He knew from experience that no matter how long he held his breath, he would never, unfortunately, be able to knock himself out, sending himself to a peaceful oblivion if only for a little while. 

How he had tried!

New feelings pierced through him, initiating a wave of nausea that forced him to grab the stub of a bisected streetlight for support. Rage and longing washed over him, bathing him in pure, raw emotion that was stunning in its intensity; no one else could possibly harbor it. He rubbed his temples, all too aware of an oncoming migraine.

Soft whispers caressed the walls of his skull. She wasn’t too far now. He was like a tiny drop of water falling into and being absorbed by a pool. The familiar feelings of fear, shame, and desperating were swallowed up by something utterly inhuman; a blind force of nature lumbering ever onwards, blind and unheeding to the destruction left in its wake. 

The bricks of the looming embankment, he noticed, were slightly uneven, having been forced out of place by the weight of those above. He had a chance, afterall. Swallowing a heavy lump in his throat and bracing himself against the pain, he crossed the street and jumped onto the wall, scrabbling to get a grip and having himself off the ground. He was fighting gravity now, grunting with effort each time he lifted a hand and groped around for a new hold, straining his muscles as he forced himself higher and higher. There was no hunger here, nor was there any kind of physical maladies endangering him. Sickness, disease, exhaustion (besides the mental kind, anyway), and exposure simply held no sway here. And yet, whenever he ran from her, fucking gravity of all things decided that it would not go away. A brick slid out from under his left foot while he was probing for new handholds and, for a terrifying couple of seconds, he fell, but he shot out both his hands and managed to wrap them around an oblong brick jutting outwards. His legs swung and kicked in the air, searching in vain for support. 

_ You can’t run from me _ . It was her inward, telepathic voice speaking. The only one she ever used. Now that he thought of it, he wasn’t even sure she was capable of speaking normally. She sounded—no,  _ felt _ , there connection went beyond such vague impressions—confident and assured.  

Becket gritted his teeth and curled his knees up to his chest, pressing his heels against the wall and pushing his body above the oblong brick, allowing him to grab onto new ledges and to clumsily place both feet on the outwards facing brick. He caught his breath, more out of habit then necessity, and continued his climb. 

Her displeasure stung him, making him flinch. The soles of his boots grinded downwards and he gripped the wall tighter, hugging it and forcing himself to be as flat as possible. The rough rock ground against his cheek and his ragged breath stirred dust off it’s surface. He reached higher, found purchase, then lifted a leg and pushed himself up...he reached with his other hand...lifted a leg...He didn’t dare look up, but he thought he heard a faint, whistling noise just above him. He had to be nearing the top! And from there he could finally get a good look at this psychic hellscape and find a way out. His heart soared along with his ascent. Was Manny still out their with the APC? If so, they might be able high-tail it out of there and disappear before anyone knew the wiser. Fairport, Armacham, the amplification chamber,  _ her _ ...damn them all, Hell was the only place where they belonged. 

_ Where will you go?  _ She was genuinely curious. There was no ill-will or any kind of malevolence for a change, she sincerely wanted to know.  

“Anywhere but here,” he said aloud, wasting valuable breath. The option of communication through nonverbal means was there. Thanks to Project Harbinger, he was no slouch in the psychic department either, for all the good that did. Still, the idea of talking to her on her level seemed to him to be another way of violating his person; she was already using his body, so why not start using his head while she was at it? Theirs was a two-way connection, but due to her power, she more often than not flooded his head with her will whenever given the opportunity, overwhelming his being and reducing him to something little more than a husk.  No, his mind was sacred while everything else was rotting in her grasp. Unless it was pried open, he’d keep his third eye closed as long as possible.

He reached the precipice, his hand falling onto a flat surface. Finally! He hoped she felt what he experienced just as strongly as he felt her; he had won and he was going to tell anyone who would listen about what happened to him and who was responsible; heads would roll and if that bitch Aristide was still alive, well, he was definitely going to have a word with her and that Senator friend. Not once had he ever forgotten what the erstwhile president of Armacham did to Stokes...poor Keira…

_ Forget her. Come down. _

So her emotions really are perfectly in tune with mine, he realized. She was not only slightly miffed, she was downright jealous. 

Snakefist was right, he reflected, she really is a coveter.

He swung a leg over and hefted himself ontop the wall. There was little place to stand, so he sat astride, looking out across a desolate wasteland of crimson dunes gathering around the bases of black, featureless edifices. From his perch, he saw that the peaks of most of them reached up to his level, but a spectacular few rose higher and higher until they disappeared into the ruddy sky. The shifting colors were slowing down now, coagulating into a dull, rusty haze. He peered down and gasped, the opposite side of the wall was as dark and featureless as the structures in the distance, no ledges or holds to latch onto—a flat, polished surface.                       

_ Did you bring a ladder?  _ She was very pleased, to say the least, and it instantly dawned on him that this was her doing. Her world, her rules. This was all a game, she was ready to snatch him away at any time, but allowed him to go through this obstacle course for her own amusement. He was reminded of a small child plucking the legs off a spider. 

_ She is a woman now and she doesn't even know it _ .  

Michael Becket screamed at the uncaring sky: a primal, hysterical cry that made his lungs ache, and he held it until his breath dwindled away into a hollow death rattle in his throat. Damn it all.

_ Don’t do it. _ For the first time she was worried.  _ Don’t _ .  

He threw himself over the side, conceding victory to gravity. He hit the ground, bounced, and flew into a dune, sinking into it. He opened his mouth to scream and gagged on a mouthful of sand. He struggled against the onrushing tide, swinging his limbs and clawing at the sand all around him, and only succeeded in digging himself farther in.  _ Maybe this is better _ , he thought,  _ maybe I can dig a hole out of here _ . And if not, then he’d be trapped down here forever, and compared to spending an eternity with her, that really wasn’t too much of a bad thing. But before he could put his theory into practice, the earth opened up, heaved, and spat him out. He gracefully flew through the air, landing at her feet in a crumpled heap.

He rolled over, laying on his back and looking up at her at her face. “Your looking less cadaverous than usual, Alma.”

Alma, or the thing that once went by that name, gazed impassively down at him. She had long since stopped caring about her appearance: long, greasy, unkempt black hair crawls down her narrow, sharp shoulders; framing her withered face with it’s dead eyes, sunken cheeks, and bleached flesh stretched out across her skull. She bent over, lifting him up with thin, emaciated arms and locking his wrist in a vice-like grasp with a bony hand. His compliment, he found, was much too generous. Her ribs, straining against pallid flesh, stood out distinctly in the dying light—he counted every one of them, absurdly imagining himself playing them like a xylophone—and, involuntarily, his eyes hovered over the iliums of her pelvis, observing how they flared outwards. He shut his eyes against the sight, wondering if he was looking any better in real-time. Was he still strapped to that chair in the chamber? His matted hair obscuring his face, unclipped nails with dirty tips curling under his fingers, his pants stained with filth...or, perhaps he was like Keegan, stumbling around the blasted ruins, dancing to her tune. 

Then there was the third possibility, horrible and obscene in its implication, that she had won and this was all that was left. The mother of the apocalypse had fulfilled her nature. Reality had become so unbearable that he only remained sane by telling himself it was all a dream.

She had to be aware of his confusion, but she never so much as gave him a hint about what was going on. Why would she?

The wall wavered like a mirage, then dissipated, revealing her home, his prison, in all its decrepit glory. He considered shaking her off of him, it wouldn’t be the first time and besides, it wasn’t like there was anything better to do. But he was mentally drained; he had no fight left to offer. So he allowed her to take him back. It’s for the better, he figured. She might actually enjoy another chase, and he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“Why won’t you let me die?” He didn’t mean to ask that, the words just tumbled out of him.

_ Because I love you _ . The declaration was firm and final, like a death knell.

The amplification chamber, or at least an imitation of it, stood against a maelstrom of jagged, concrete shards rising from the broken earth like a pile of thorns; tongues of flame flickered through the cracks. She let him go, and he resignedly went to his chair and sat down. He didn’t have to stay here, if he got on his knees and asked politely, she might conjure up a king sized bed, but the thought of doing so held no appeal. That would not only be giving in to her, but turning his back on everything that had happened before. The amplification chamber served as a reminder of his failure to save them all—Keira, and the rest of his team, and even Halford—and how he had been deceived and taken advantage of by all the rest. There was an anger inside him that was clearly distinct from hers; where her rage was all-consuming and entirely destructive, his was cold, sharp, and calculating like a scalpel welded by a surgeon. Genevieve Aristide, the name was fire on his lips, a brand upon his memory. He sincerely hoped she wasn’t gone, meeting her again, his hands wrapping around her neck, that was all he had to live for at this point.

As if to tell him otherwise, she materialized to his right, taking his hand in his and laying it on her distended belly. She had taken on a more normal appearance now, which she was kind enough to do in these moments of forced and unwanted intimacy.

_ Daddy _

It wasn't Alma's voice. 

He sighed and slumped in his chair. 

Disappointed by his less than enthusiastic reaction, she vanished, going away to get up to whatever vile acts she was fond of. Maybe she would liquify some of those mercenaries Armacham was sending in to clean up this mess. Nothing too strenuous though, she was with child, after all. She’d probably content herself with wiping out only a few companies. He knew she was capable of that...and more; she was fond of sharing with him visions of the aftermath—empty rooms transformed into charnel houses. Sometimes, when she was lazy, she had her abominations—failed psychic commanders left hideous and insane by gene therapy and hypnotic conditioning—do the bloody work for her. There was no end to her cruelty. Harlan Wade had taken an innocent little girl and turned her into a monster; if Alma hadn’t beaten him to it, he would’ve enjoyed putting the bastard away. 

He felt himself drifting away. Something resembling sleep was a small mercy granted to him, and he embraced it, closing his eyes and surrendering to the weariness dragging him down. 

In the last moment of consciousness, he experienced an odd window of clarity, and a haunting thought occurred to him just before he went under. 

_ Have I always been so angry? This thirst for revenge...is it mine or hers? _

***

It was what passed for night when he woke up. The sky resembled a bed of cooling embers; the only light coming from flocks of dimly glowing sparks flying across the grey/black backdrop. He watched them for awhile, then rose from his seat. 

The simple fact of his ability to think clearly was enough to tell him that she was gone for the moment. Which was odd, usually she didn’t leave him alone for too long, but he didn’t allow this to get in the way of his relief. A pile of rubbish lay in the corner of his chamber and he sifted through it until he brought out his prize: a small piece of chalk. He takes it around to the back of the chamber where a sheet of corrugated metal is propped up against the wall. After pausing to look over his shoulder, he seized the sheet with both hands and moved it out of the way, revealing rows of white, vertical lines made against the surface. His piece of chalk in hand, he counted them the markers up and made a new one on the bottom most row. He counted again, then, disbelieving, again, and swore under his breath.  

If time here remotely resembled what it should be, then it meant that Michael Becket was going to experience the joys of fatherhood real soon.

Only a special few can join the ranks of Delta Force, the strict selection process and rigorous trials saw to that. Surprisingly, it was not the endurance tests or high requirements that daunted him, but the psychiatric evaluations. When it came to those, there was no way clear way to win, all was up in the air. All you could do was answer the questions and keep your fingers crossed. The proctors—medical professionals from different service branches, along with a few civilian psychologists—asked him a wide variety of questions; some complex, some upsetting and invasive, but it was the deceptively simple ones that troubled him the most. It was toward the end of one such round of examination with a bald, chubby, spectacled civilian in a three piece suit asked him where he saw himself in seven years. It was something he hadn’t heard since he was a kid sitting through a job interview for stocking shelves, but he could tell by the way the civvy phrased it that alot depended on how he answered. He didn’t remember what he said, but it was definitely nothing along the lines of being violated by an undead demon woman and helping to bring about the birth of the antichrist. Life, he reflected, had done a marvelous job pulling the chair out from under his ass.  

A heavy sense of shame overwhelmed him; he had to escape, to prove to the world that none of this was his fault, but who would believe him? Did they even believe he was still alive? For all they knew, he was just another casualty to be shoved under the rug.

He returned to his chair and closed his eyes. 

***

The earth shuddered and groaned; the sky peeled open and revealed a fathomless void; entire swaths of land phased in and out of existence. Great times were upon him, and the breakdown of this alien world only accelerated with the impending arrival of his child’s birth. 

Alma’s presence was becoming more erratic and in-between. Sometimes she’d be gone for days; flickering images of her as a child, woman, and waterlogged corpse showing up at the edge of his vision the only reminder of her presence. In spite of himself, Becket started to feel a little worried about her. If there were complications, if she died...again...then he may well be trapped here forever, and he didn’t dare think about what would happen to him if this world were to suddenly implode. He calmed himself by going for walks. She joined him a few times, but most often he was alone with only his thoughts for company. 

He wouldn’t of had it any other way. 

When viewed in a detached manner, it really was fascinating what was happening all around him. In the middle of a ruined square sat an ornate fountain—a tall, baroque, multi-tiered creation—that launched an endless geyser of black water, its top vanishing in the heavens. He nearly stepped into the wavering column of water, thinking that maybe the pressure would push him up to freedom, but there was no way to be sure of that, so he walked past the fountain and into a small, undecorated, cube-like structure whose interior proved to be a that more fitting of a vast warehouse. Other examples of this bizarre architecture was an upside down staircase he was able to walk across without falling; a hallway that, no matter how many steps he took, could never reach the end of; a massive structure that was a bunch of smaller ones haphazardly crammed together, a bewildering conglomeration of different styles and textures reminiscent of a Rubik’s cube. And then there were what he dubbed the ‘glitched areas’. Entire sidewalks were blank, smooth, featureless tiles that ended abruptly. A side of a skyscraper may be covered with shattered windows and steel beams, but the opposite side might look like a giant, empty canvas. Entire stretches of land were simply empty, not only of buildings, but of light, color, and dimension. Gaps in reality. 

There was no semblance of time anymore. The dark sky was hanging down like a dark, tattered tapestry when he came across the crevice—a narrow opening in the middle of an onyx plateau somewhere outside the ruined city. Lurid light poured out and cast the black stone in a pulsating glow, making the very ground beneath his feet look alive.

Soft cries and whimpering, barely audible, wafted out into the still air.

“Oh shit,” he breathed. “Oh no.”

Every instinct, every line of reasoning, every single little nerve in his body screamed at him to go away, to forget this, but there was no going back now. Whatever the hell this is, as horrible as it was, may be a window of opportunity, and he’d be a fool to ignore it. This might be my only chance, he assured himself as he approached the unknown.

Their was just enough space to fit both his legs through. He awkwardly wiggled his way in, keeping his shoulders propped on the rock to stop himself from falling in completely, and planted his feet against the sides,, then he began the long, laborious process of climbing down. Doing so was surprisingly easy. The walls were covered by an intricate series of grooves that allowed him to descend at a steady pace. What bothered him wasn’t the smooth glistening walls or the cries from below, nor was it the red light that made the grooves look like deep cuts in raw flesh, but the  _ heat _ . Above ground and for the longest time, temperature had been a non-issue. Now, he blinked and squinted against beads of sweat pouring down his face; perspiration covered his arms and pooled across the small of his back. Damn, but he had to go on! He looked up, the sky appeared so much darker, a black portal surrounded by grooved scarlet. He continued descending, the walls growing closer and tighter around him, the cries louder and more intense.

They were hers.

The walls closed in until he was stopped by a small opening where nothing could be seen below; the sliver of a howling, gaping chasm was all that was visible. It was difficult to believe that this could lead to anywhere good, but he had to know what was down here. If it wasn’t a way out, then it may provide him with a key, or something to use against her. Nothing short of a miracle could help him now. 

He held his breath, sucking in his chest, and squeezed his way through.

And fell.

His hands shout out and caught stone that crumbled in his grip, and he screamed, his cries louder than hers, and all was cool and dark and loud—his frenzied screams bouncing off the walls and crashing against his ears. There was nothing, nothing at all; the beating of his heart the only thing marking the passage of time. He had overstepped his boundaries and his punishment was to fall through this gap, and this time she would not be their to scoop him out. He’d fall forever, perhaps, unable to live, unable to die. And she, who had taken everything that she could ever want, would let him fall, his use fulfilled. A discarded doll consigned to a hurtling void.      

And to think, he was once frightened by death.    

His lungs exhausted themselves and the only sound was the blood thrumming in his ears, He shouted again when, without warning, he slid onto a smooth surface and skimmed down it’s seemingly concave curve, gliding through the dark until spinning to a dizzying halt at the bottom. He flailed his limbs, trying to get a grip on anything, but everything was so smooth and curved, in startling contrast to the crevice he climbed down not long before. He spun, gradually slowing down, until he was left dizzy and nauseous, feeling like a coin that had come to a stop after rolling down the curves of a bowl. He blinked, took deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, adjusting his eyes to the dark. Holy shit, he must’ve fallen right down into a glitch. A grey area, perhaps, a place beyond her control. Her screams were gone; sometime during his bloodcurdling fall they had gone silent, but their echoes still resounded in his head. He squeezed his eyes against the horrid sound...and had an epiphany. 

She was weakening! The birth, the contractions or whatever, was leaving her vulnerable. The deranged landscape, the unfinished spots, were all side-effects stemming from the stress she was going through. Her attention was divided, the threads she had so carefully weaved together were unravelling.  Her dreamworld, his nightmare, was coming apart at the seams! He had a chance! He had a fucking chance! You really can’t keep a good man down. 

Growing more accustomed to the dark, he saw that he was in a small chamber, it’s walls possessing the color and texture of polished jade. But there had to be more! There had to be something useful here… He carefully inspected the place, inch by inch, finding the sharp shards of onyx stone he dragged down here with him. Damn! And how was he going to climb out of here? He hadn’t thought of that. He really should’ve of thought of that, and a back-up plan wouldn’t of been bad either. He really blundered into this one, really. 

_ Story of my life. _

It was cold here, that was a relief, and it was very soft, a lot more comfortable than his chair back on the surface. He settled down. The way things were breaking down around him, he counted on their being a high chance that a new opportunity would present itself.

***

_ Light. Blind and glorious.  _

_ A tall, lean figure stands silhouetted by the glow.  _ Michael,  _ she calls,  _ Michael _. _

_ As if summoned by her call, he comes into existence. There is no pain nor anything to burden his weightless existence. He is floating in place, entranced by her call. _

Michael.

_ It is not the voice of a malicious child-woman, it is compassionate and kind, entirely ethereal, yet so familiar. _

Keira,  _ he calls back, his voice is feeble and weak, he tries again _ , Keira! _ It is still not loud enough. He pushes himself forwards, just as she retreats into the glare.  _ Keira!

_ The light fades, and he is in Wade Elementary School as it was before the blast. He sees her at the end of a hallway lined by clean lockers and bright, colorful pictures of frogs, ladybugs and bluebirds. None of them as bright as her.  _

Do you remember?

_ He runs after her and she is gone, disappearing amidst a tangle of twisting rebars under a leaden sky, and he follows her, the rusty metal tearing at his arms and legs.  _ Keira! Keira! _ He clears the debris and stands in the middle of a deserted street, screaming her name.  _

I am here.

_ She’s is standing on the edge of a cliff, against a massive wall of smoke that bends and curls like a living coil. He sprints, dodging piles of wreckage and abandoned cars, smashing through the ashen effigies caught in the middle of their daily routines.  _

_ He is just a few steps away from her, can see her clearly. Keira is just as she was when they first came to Fairport: hair done up in a single braid, a ballistic vest worn over a tank-top, her eyes bright and full of life. He dives past the few feet, opening his arms and embracing her, and she crumbles into dust like all the ashen figures he had run over in the street and he is falling head over heels into the crater… _

_ And falls back into an elementary school classroom, the walls decorated in bright pictures of firefighters and doctors. He chases her throughout a dozen rooms, across a variety of memories, all while she calls his name, yet he never manages to get any closer. _

_ Cool air seeps throughout the urban decay of what he thinks used to be Auburn, filling the empty warehoused and gutted machine shops. Shattered glass is rimed with frost; the strewn forms of charred wrecks are hidden under glossy waves of snow. Winter in Fairport. The cold bites through flesh and sinks its teeth in his bones. She is nowhere to found. He strains his eyes against the chilly gloom: there is no trace of her.        _ __

_ He aimlessly roams around for a long time, hunching his shoulders against the cold. It really is dreadful here, but wandering by himself, even if for only a little while, is better than wasting away on his chair, in the hag’s prison.  _

_ He halts, stares down in confusion, and crouches next to a footprint made in the snow.  _

_ It is too fresh to be his. The size is also too small.  _

_ Hope, he has long since learned, is a dangerous thing. The sensation is like a beautiful sculpture of glass, pretty to look at, yet, when it breaks, the shards fall down and cut the admirer. It was left behind by one of the Replicas, or the black ops sent in by Armacham, he repeats all this to himself as he follows them down the street and into an alleyway. It’s a wide one, must’ve been made with the need for trucks to get to the industrial buildings in mind.  _

_ That is, if the wheel-marks going down it are anything to go by. Examining them, he sees that they are from a civilian vehicle, they are the kind that would’ve been left behind by an APC. _

_ He follows them, almost breaking out into a run, but he restrains himself. The footsteps are gone, having been replaced by these new tracks. The Replicas have this kind of equipment though, and so does anyone who has the money and connections. He cannot afford to get his hopes up, not now, not ever. But the warmth weakens his resolve, yes, he can feel it coming from just around the corner; an ebbing, orange  glow is casted across the snow under a plume of black smoke.  _

_ He quickly rounds the corner and gasps.  _

_ Sergeant Manuel Morales, a threadbare blanket covering his back and still wearing his now ragged uniform, is standing next to a burning gas can; his hands are stretched out to the flames for warmth. Behind him, the APC stands: dented, peppered by small arms fire, scorched, stained, but functioning, a testament to Morales’ dedication to the machine. Becket blinks, incredulous, but the two familiar sights do not go away; they are not fleeting like Keira. They are all too real. Why the hell is he still here with the APC? The last he saw him, he was standing outside on Still Island, wishing him good luck in the chamber. Has his teammate been searching for him all this time? The idea brings tears to his eyes.   _

_ Morales spits into the fire and heads back to the APC. His old boots crunching dismally on snow and pavement. His face is drawn and thin, his chin is covered by a thick beard. Becket runs in front of him, and stares disbelievingly as Morales looks up and through him. No recognition or alarm.  _

Manny.

_ Morales does not walk past him, he walks through him. _

_ Becket turns round and grabs his shoulder, watching in amazement as his hand shimmers and dissipates. He is nothing, he is a ghost, but if he can’t be seen, then he will sure as hell haunt the living shit out of Fairport. _

Manny! Hey, man! I’m here!

_ Manny steps onto the ramp, pauses, and glances over his shoulder.  _

I’m here, Manny! Right here! We can leave!  _ Beckett rushes past him and takes a seat in the APC.  _ Just like the good old days...actually, no, they weren’t good...but…

_ Manny does not go completely inside. He sits down on the ramp and buries his face in his hands. _

Drive! Fucking drive! I’m free, Manny.

_ The familiar interior—everything is just how he left it that fateful day—is fading away, blowing away like dust, like Kiera—so near, so intangible. No, this cannot happen, not while he is so close. He slams his feet against the floor and hammers his fists against the chairs, yelling the bearded man’s name.  _

MANNY.

_ Morales’ head jerks up and in his direction while everything else erodes and decays. Becket feels himself receding, becoming small and distant; he fights against the invisible tides bearing him away, back to the neverending terror of Alma’s realm. He holds onto Morales’ gaze, even after all else fades away, reaching out with his voice and when that fails, with his mind.  _

MANNY.

_ And all is gone.       _

***

Becket was gibbering and howling like a madman when he came to, the names of people and places, both strange and familiar, rushed past his trembling lips. The echoes of wind flowing past the skeletal frames of skyscrapers were seared into his mind; afterimages flashed past his eyes. The extraordinary experience trickled back to him, in bits and pieces, and he wiped tears from his eyes. “Get a grip, man. Get a grip,” he rasped.

But it was hard, because he knew that the dream had been so much more, and the implications overwhelming. He had escaped, if not in body, then in spirit. He was like a grain of sand slipping out of her weakening grip. It made sense, he remembered sifting through the recovered intel at that underground hospital and seeing, with his own two eyes, that his Paragon scores were the highest. He wasn’t completely powerless, though she did an excellent job in making him feel that way. If he tried hard enough, then maybe, if he played it smart, if he was real fucking careful, he might be able to reach out to Morales. Nevermind how his teammate was going to save him, all he needed to do was let someone, anyone, know that he was alive and needed help. 

There wasn’t a moment to lose.

“Becket,” came a weak voice. 

No one was there, just the smooth walls of his tomb. He got to his hands and knees, pressing his ear against a wall. 

“Becket...Becket...Becket...Becket…” It was nearly inaudible, yet persistent enough to be real. He punched the wall and hissed, pulling and shaking his hand in pain. This wall, he was sure, was all that stood between him and rescue. Alma’s power wasn’t complete here, and as far as he knew, she was far too preoccupied to be aware of his being here. But that would change, as soon as the child came, so he had to do whatever he was going to do quickly. 

“Manny! Sergeant Morales! Man...” He had an idea.  _ Manny _ , he said with his inward voice,  _ Manny _ .

The sergeant stopped calling his name. Becket’s heart fluttered. Was he gone? Did he just give up and leave? No, Morales wouldn’t do that, not after spending so much time in the ruined hellscape of Fairport…

_ The Paragon test scores! _ Becket suddenly remembered.  _ He scored low, he doesn’t have any psychic potential...that’s why Alma was never interested in him like the others. That’s why he can’t make out what I’m saying exactly...but he’s so close! There has to be a way! _

Morales was so close, like he was just out of reach…His hands roamed around and, by chance, felt one of the pieces of stone that fell in here with him. He picked it up and, on a whim, tapped it against the wall. 

Muffled footsteps came closer. “Becket, is that you?” 

Choking back a sob, squeezing the sharp bit of onyx in a white-knuckled grip, he rhythmically tapped against the wall. Come on, Manny, come on. I’m right here!

The footsteps stopped. For a heartstopping moment, silence. Then, abruptly, “Are you in here, Becket? Are you hurt?”

Becket gave him two taps. 

“Goddamn, Becket!” That came loud and clear. “How did you get under there? Can you breath?”

Again, two taps.

“You’ve got no idea how long I’ve been looking for you, man! I’ll get you out.” Becket heard him grunt in exertion, and the sound of a heavy weight toppling down and slamming against something hard. “How you’re still alive under all this rubble, I’ve got no idea.” 

“It’s not rubble!” Becket shouted. “I don’t know where I am!” 

Smashing stone and trickling rubble filled the chamber. “Becket! Where the hell are you? There’s nothing here!”

Of course there's nothing there, Becket wanted to scream, but he kept his mouth shut. He slammed the onyx repeatedly against the wall.

“I’ll get help!” Morales breathlessly explained. “There’s another guy here...he’s a real fucking weirdo but he can help us. I think he’s on our side. Says he was with a Delta team that got wiped out at this wastewater treatment plant, but he’s not one of us...you still there, Becket?”

“I am! Don’t go!” Tears, unbidden and unnoticed, crawled down his cheeks. “Please don’t go!”

“I can’t stay here, I’m sorry,” Morales went on. “The Replica’s got patrols going through here and there's planes flying around...fucking jets, man! And I don’t think there ours.”

No, no, no, no! This is not happening! If Morales left now, then he may never come back or Alma might whisk him away to someplace more hidden in the meantime. The darkness of the chamber weighed upon him, squeezing the air out of his lungs; his teeth chattered wildly and his fatigues were damp with sweat, clinging onto him like a frigid coat. He wrapped his arms tightly around himself, attempting to squeeze the fear out before it turned into full blown panic. Pain, uncompromising and unyielding, ultimately grounded him, the pain coming from his clenched right hand. Blood dripped from between his fingers; he had accidentally cut himself on the stone’s jagged edge. He slowly loosened himself, opening his bloody hand and gazing at the wound in wonder. The blood pooled and dripped over the sides, falling to the floor.

“Becket!” Morales cried out in alarm. “You’re bleeding, man! You alright!”

He was more than alright, his rapid breathing turned to unrestrained laughter, he was more than alright! Morales saw the blood, and Becket knew where to get that. Using the shard’s edge, he methodically slashed both his palms and let the blood dribble to the floor, shaking his hands when it wasn’t coming out fast enough. He dipped his fingers in the warm, dark stains before they could dry and coagulate, scribbling a message on the wall. Squinting his eyes, he saw that it was not legible enough. So he made the same message over and over on every available inch of space. He noticed that some of the messages overlapped and often times dripped over one another, but he kept on writing. It didn’t matter what Morales thought, so long as he understood.

He only stopped when both his hands went numb and the blood on the wall dried. The cramped space was filled with a thick, coppery stench that made him gag. 

“Oh my fucking god,” Morales gasped. “Oh…”

Becket opened his mouth to speak, but a dry rattle came out instead. His eyelids were heavy. For the first time in his life, he wanted to go back to that ugly chair of his. The crevice opening was still there, faintly glowing. He had to go up to the surface before she came back, lest she started suspecting anything. 

“Goodbye Manny,” he rasped, and staggered upwards, groping about with heavy, useless hands.

“See you soon.”

***

Michael Becket lounged in his chair and admired his new pair of hands. He was content to let them repose on the armrests, but, periodically, as if to assure himself that what he was seeing was real, he would hold them up to his face and turn them over in order to better appreciate their new and intricate dimensions. The nails were completely shattered—a painful occurrence; they broke, one by one, as he clawed his way out of the smooth jade tomb—and his hands were coated in crusted, dried blood that made it hard to stretch them, so he contented himself with keeping them locked in their frozen and curled up gestures.

There was an odd disturbance at the foot of the short ramp that lead away from the amplification chamber—the air was shimmering and distorting, coming in and out of focus, reminding him of a heat mirage. He refused to let this ruin his newfound tranquility. He had seen dozens of such mirages; first as a child in his parent’s car, watching the haze fly by over the asphalt during a summer vacation to the Pacific coast, then as a man stationed overseas, staring at the familiar mirages as they danced and swirled over the sand. This was nothing new, as a matter of fact, it was reassuring. He leaned back and gave himself up to happier memories, when everything was new and filled with promise, all limits bending before his ambition. 

The mirage dissipated and their stood Alma. The sight of her made him straighten up, his eyes widening in interest. Her form was constantly changing, caught in an endless loop of transformation. One moment she was a young girl with grimy, black hair and a dirty red dress, then she stretched and grew, the face shrinking and the bones bending, and she was the damp, lipless thing that he saw emerge from the vat on a video screen in Aristide’s safehouse so long ago. Girl, woman, it seemed that she couldn’t decide on a form. Every once in a while, she’d bloom into the woman she wanted him to see: the slender figure, full lips, luscious hair cascading down her shoulders and hiding her eyes, but even in this form she never looked quite right; she was too pale and her eyes—whenever the hair parted past her face in those horrible, shameful moments when his flesh turned against him, when the frenzy reached it’s awful, moaning pitch—glowed. Just a glimpse of this made him want to curl up and shut his eyes against the world, to give himself over to the everpresent fear, but, mercifully, she was never able to sustain this form for long. The hair inevitably lost its luster and clung to her emaciated face under a coat of amniotic fluid. She faded away, came back, and lurched forwards, dwindling more and more as she came closer. She vanished, but his sigh of relief turned into a gasp when she materialized right in front of him. Her body flickered so rapidly that it was just a feverish blur of faces and limbs, until it settled on what he always figured to be her true appearance, that of the hag. 

She delicately took his hands in hers, they looked similar now, his ruined hands complimenting her own, decayed pair rather nicely. Had she woken up and clawed at the walls of her submerged cell in those moments when her father pulled the plug on her life support? Just as he tore his way up and out of that dark chasm and crevice? Something resembling pity overwhelmed him, but not sympathy for this thing. Never sympathy, not after what she has done, so why did he have to tell himself that? 

_ Yes. _ The voice was a distant echo from someplace fathomlessly remote and far, far away.

It was an odd thing, he reflected. If she had drowned in that vat in the Vault and stayed dead, he would’ve wept for her and made it his life’s work to avenge her. But she lived, the psychic signature tearing apart death’s turbid veil, and now she was a monster to be destroyed, all sympathy he might’ve felt banished. Fate, he thought, is a very fickle thing.

_ Am I so terrible? _

Her essence, parasitic and alien, crept into him and he recognized her sadness, keenly felt it’s sting. He clung to his memories; bringing to mind a birthday party complete with bright balloons and a cake; a trip to the beach, the monotonous sound of waves beating the shore; hiking through the Alps while on leave; having coffee with Keira Stokes back in the States, a clandestine meeting where rank didn’t matter and, if he hadn’t been a coward, circumstances may have turned out differently...He shut his eyes, drowning her psychic feelers with his nostalgia, defining himself through memory, seeing himself as a speck of oil floating across a pool of water, part of it but still distinct.

She threw his hands away. _How?_ Searing nails pierced his forehead, digging through his grey matter. _Why did you hurt yourself?_ She locked his cranium in an invisible vice, tightening the pressure. _I can’t see you. Why can’t I see you?_

_ Because you’re weak _ , he gritted his teeth,  _ because I figured out how to block you out _ . 

Clammy hands wrapped themselves around his face, the nails squeezing the nape of his neck. He sensed her face brushing against his. He did not feel her breath, for she never had one. 

_ Why!? _

The pressure was now coming from within, filling his sinuses with acid and making his head swell outwards until he was convinced that it was going to explode at any moment. He writhed and squirmed in her grasp, the memories leaping up before him without being called for. They grew strange and unfamiliar; he was in a pristine examination room with a doctor bending over him and declaring him a ladybug, and he told him in a high-pitched voice that he was a boy, not a bug, and the man in the white coat laughed. Then came the onslaught of metal and latex, his mouth was dry, and the same doctor was offering him to the massive beast of iron and all he could do was watch, limbs heavy but eyelids all too peeled open, as he entered its mouth. Inside the cold throat was an endless cacophony of loud bangs consuming his screams, and then silence, all was dark and cold again. When he came to, he was in the kitchen with his mom talking about another boring day at school. It had to be one of her memories getting mixed up with his, he reasoned, her gaining the upper hand, so he opened his eyes, hoping to distract her somehow. 

Twin black holes greeted him, her sunken eye sockets obscured by shadow, but he detected some understanding. The pain receded and he hoped against all hope that she hadn’t taken anything away. The pressure slowly receded, along with her grip and presence. She blurred, drifted away, then coalesced at the foot of the ramp leading to his throne. 

_ Come here _ .

He didn’t budge.

_ I will tell you everything. _

He feigned disinterest, lifting his chin a bit and staring off into the fractured distance. Not even her tone, with it’s creeping desperation, was enough to break through his indifference.

_ You’re never going to leave. I won’t let you. _

He felt the anger swelling and accumulating inside her, threatening to spill out and sweep him away. It was a very familiar sensation, one that attacked him like a chronic pain. He shut his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable onslaught. 

“Michael?” A familiar voice, a  _ live  _ voice.

He opened his eyes and saw her amidst the wreckage and the flames, the gnarled steel supports and mounds of grinded up tile and all that lay in between. Keira Stokes. Just as he saw her last: blonde hair done up in a short braid, a ballistic vest worn over a t-shirt, fingerless gloves over small, but dexterous hands. “Michael!” she called out to him, needing him. “You’re not going to sit there all day, are you? Get over here!”

He blinked and, when that did not work, squinted. This really was one hell of a persistent mirage. This must be the ultimate symptom of this dying world—the death rattle he would, hopefully, spill out of. But recent circumstances haven't exactly done much to promote any kind of optimism; he needed Manny, now more than ever, to get him out of here! She wasn’t real, none of it was, the people were ghosts and the lands a violent fantasy. 

“I’m real Michael! You gotta fight it!” She took off one of her gloves and threw it at his face and the flying leather slapped him out of his denial. Christ, he  _ actually felt it _ , and it smelled of her, it carried the chemical smell of that polish she was so fond of rubbing down here gear with. She was always so particular and precise about everything. It really was her! The glove fell to his feet, but the stench lingered and, with it, countless memories. Of long hours spent checking and re-checking their gear, of the furtive glances they gave one another while the rest of the team joked and bantered around them, so ignorant of what was taking place right in the middle of them. “We don’t have much time, hurry!”

He shot up to his feet and nearly tripped over himself when he heard her cry out in pain. There was blood on her chest now, where Aristide had shot her a lifetime ago, and she was sinking, slowly crumbling to the ground. She gagged, spat blood and fell to her knees. 

“Keira!” He ran, but the ground decided it was a good time to glitch out. Although it looked the same, the texture was rough and unyielding beneath his feet, like sand. It was like moving down that infinite hallway he had found when the everything first started breaking down, no matter how many steps he took, his destination was always just out of reach. “Hold on, I’ll be there!”

_ I won’t fail you again _ .

She clutched her chest and watched her life fall between her fingers to paint the ashen sand. Her lips moved, he saw that very clearly, and her voice rang out, inhumanly loud. “I’m hit.” She grimaced, and forced herself to look away from the patterns her blood made on the sand, to Becket who was still struggling to reach her. “I’m dying, Michael. It’s too late for me, but not for you.” She was very pale; her lips were blue, wordlessly opening and parting. “I’m dying, I’m dying, I’m dying, Michael.”

It must’ve been exhausting for her to breath at this point, but her voice was becoming more powerful, penetrating his very soul and causing him to shout a stream of nonsense. He begged, cajolled, threatened and pleaded; it was mad, utterly implausible, but he was convinced that if he kept making noise, no matter whether it made sense or not, then she would stay alive—if only for a little bit longer. He leaped just as the ground returned to normal, flying past the last few feet and hitting the sand next to her. “Michael.” He took her in is arms and held her close, pressing his hands where he guessed the wound to be, but the blood was everywhere and he found that the body armor was still intact—whatever attacked her came from the inside. He clutched her tightly, knowing it was all that he could do, and her glistening eyes met his. 

_ Michael  _ came the voice without lips, the other woman’s voice.

Keira smiled. Black hair sprouted from her scalp and flowed over his arms; her skin dried and bleached before his very eyes; the clothes rotted and tore into tatters in his hands. The smile grew wider and mocking laughter came from all around. He recoiled in disgust, throwing her away and watching her changing body burst into dust that blew across the dunes. His chair, along with the entire amplification chamber and the all the wreckage, was gone. Crimson topped dunes stretched as far as the eye could see. Sand flowed between his fingers. Looking down, he found they were completely fine now. He opened his hands and watched the rest of the sand blow away from his open palms. 

Dust to dust.

***

_ He is taking a midnight stroll on a moonlit beach somewhere in Okinawa. Awamori is sweet on his breath and warm in his chest. The moon, low and full, is a shining saucer suspended on a clear sky pin pricked with twinkling stars. The few stray clouds move quickly over the black, roiling water of the Pacific. There is no future, no past. Only the the monotonous beating of waves and the cool sand beneath his bare feet, the tingling sunburn on his arms and the lightness in his head. May this night last forever. _

_ During the course of his never ending walk, his inner peace is ruined in the form of a stranger approaching him. They are too far away for him to make out any features. The figure, neatly silhouetted against the fine grey sand, roughly matches his size, and seems to be matching his stride, step by step. Indeed, they are like a dark reflection of himself; the cut-out is steadily advancing in his direction, close to the black line that marks the furthest extent of the waves along the beach. They are bound for a confrontation, and he has no desire to even consider what may take place between them. A subtle dread crawls over him like a wave of unseen mosquitoes, making his skin crawl and itch. Obliquely, he shifts away from the water, moving closer to the treeline, and the stranger does likewise. Hair rises on the back of his neck, the pleasant buzz is gone, this is all too real. Making no more pretenses, he crosses to the shoreline and the figure wastes no time following suit. Whoever said imitation was the best form of flattery, he thinks, was never a victim of it. There was nothing loathsome than having your life flawlessly copied by another, because, as he was finding out, it made one realize that their own life was not so unique as previously imagined. Foreboding gave way to hate. His equanimity now broken by this inscrutable invader, he now feels that they are mocking him, reducing the entirety of his being to a few perfect movements. He goes farther, stepping into the cool water and, seeing the figure do so too, he splashes away from shore until the waves splash against his chest and cold spray slaps his face. He does not bend to the waves, and likewise, they are as stolid as ever _ — _ a looming pillar marching against the tide. His hands make fists; he wades to shore and keeps a firm pace in the middle of the beach, bracing himself for the inevitable. _

_ The figure is their, not reacting to his agitation in the slightest.  _

_ On a whim, when they just out of each other's reach, he stops. They do not. So, seeing that he has no choice in the matter, he walks to meet them, his movements reminiscent of a man marching across the square to the gallows. _

_ Radiance from the glittering surf reveals a familiar face: Colonel Richard Vanek, looking none the worse for wear after having his head blown off by Becket in a particularly heated encounter. The erstwhile black ops commander, evidently, bears no hard feelings; he does not spare his rival a mere glance, he keeps on going by as if their earlier maneuvers were just a silly, private game between two friends. _

_ Hate spills over into rage. Becket halts, turns around, and lays a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Vanek?” _

_ “What do you want?” _

_ Becket strikes him, his fist neatly connecting with his close-cropped head with an audible crack, and he falls over, hitting the sand with a dull thud. Becket stands over him, chest heaving and eyes wide _ — _ was it really that easy? Vanek stirs and Becket unthinkingly helps him up.  _

_ “Becket?” he asks in that irritating drawl. “That you, son?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ “Fantastic.” Vanek places a warm hand on Becket’s shoulder and slams the other in his stomach, knocking the breath out of him and keeling him over. The shuffling of sand below him, the blur of a foot, and a web of pain spreads out from his crotch, felling him to the ground. _

_ “You poor thing,” he coos, his face drifting in and out of an opaque cloud of agony, “you miserable bastard. Didn't I tell you that whatever I had in store was better than what that bitch Genevieve was going to do to you? Do you know who you're looking at?” _

_ Becket is too busy writhing in the sand to answer, trying and failing to get back on his feet. Through sheer stubbornness, he gets on his hands and knees. Vanek crouches and leans in close.  _

_ “You’re looking at a goddamn hero, an honest to God certified pure fucking tragic hero...If I won back there, down in that tunnel under a hellhole masquerading as a school, I’d of saved the whole fucking world. Do you want to know why, chickpea?”  _

_ Becket can hazard a guess. He grimaces and shamefully turns his face away from his interrogator, closing his eyes against the incoming truth.  _

_ “Congrats on becoming a father, and, before I forget, I must commend you on absolutely and irrevocably fucking over the entire world. Honest to God, I’m genuinely impressed Becket. I couldn't have done such a thing even if I tried. I mean, I really have to hand it to you, you’ve done more damage in the long run than the other guy with his little firework show..” _

_ A question forming on his lips, Becket manages to get on his feet, but Vanek is already gone, sauntering the beach, his feet falling on Becket’s footprints. Vanek stops a ways away, now a featureless silhouette once more, and waves in his direction. _

_ “Sayonara! Can’t say I’ll miss you!” Vanek spins on his heel and disappears in the distance.  _

_ Becket watches him go, wondering if she’ll lose interest in him now, and if that is the case, if he’ll be able to walk this beach with Vanek forever.   _

_ *** _

_ Good luck, man!  _ Those were the last words Sergeant Manuel Morales had spoken to his friend, Becket, before he entered the abandoned facility on Still Island, never to return...Until now, in a kind of way. Those three words coursed through his mind, unblinkingly, as he stared at the new words that had emerged on the concrete pillar before him:

I AM IN HELL HELP ME

Morales blinked past tears, reading and rereading the words, still not quite believing in them. No one scrawled those words, the stone was fucking bleeding, all the while he heard Becket’s feeble tapping from underneath the rubble. He had, quite ashamedly, counted Becket as dead, even though there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. When night fell on Still Island and the stars shined weakly over the ashen horizon, he entered the facility to find Keira Stokes’ corpse and, even worse, no sign of Becket. At least finding Keira gave him some closure. The empty chair inside the amplification was somehow more horrible than a corpse—if recent events had taught him anything, it was that absence left room for imagination, and the fates he had envisioned for his two missing friends—Keegan was the first to go, humming and unaware, then Becket—had kept him up for many long, freezing nights. He had at first thought to escape, first requesting extraction by helicopter, but that went down in flames, literally. Planes and choppers, not just the little reconnaissance craft, but huge cargo carriers, were dropping out of the sky like flies whenever they got too close. Usually they were shot down by either the Replica or Armacham forces, and yet, there were a few times when a craft came tantalizingly close in the middle of the night, when the fighting had died down, only for it to suddenly swerve at an unnatural angle and then he’d be fleeing the scene, running for his life before rescue could fall on him and explode into a million, glittering pieces of flaming steel. All for no discernable reason. More baffling was were all the meteors burning though the sky that later proved to be man-made satellites.  Simply driving away was not an option; all the roads that weren’t already broken or clogged with abandoned, ruined cars, were locked down and could not even be approached while the sun was up.

It was only natural that he became a creature of the night.

There were enough freeze dried rations to ensure that he could live, if not comfortably, then at least with a full belly, for many months, even a year if he went on half rations. So he crept around in the darkest hours of night, a lone chariot driver in the land of Dis, his headlights shining across the silent, unmoving citizens of Fairport. Hoping that one day reinforcements would arrive, and he’d be taken away from all this madness. But did he really want that? He asked himself that many times, knowing that while a return to normalcy was possible, he’d forever be haunted by the guilt of over what happened on Still Island…

At least he was able to give Stokes a proper burial. There was a park somewhere in what was the nicer part of town. The towering residential high-rises had taken the brunt of the blast, the shockwave having flayed them so that only their skeletons remained, the glass finery being all but stripped away. They cast their irregular black shadows over the field of dry grass, criss-crossing it with jagged black lines, so dark that he was afraid of falling into them. A light drizzle—actual rainwater, smelly and the color of rust but real water, nevertheless—made the brown, unruly grass sway and rustle around his ankles as he carried a shrouded Stokes to a low rise rearing itself among a garden of white, dust encrusted flowers. He dug a hole with an entrenching tool taken from the APC, put Keira away, clambered out, and refilled the grave. That was that. It wasn’t fair, he had said that about most losses, but it was this one where he actually wanted to scream those words aloud. It was Stokes that held them all together, encouraged them and guided them in the right direction. And this was her reward: a bullet in the gut. 

Fan-fucking-tastic. 

He never found out who pulled the trigger. The bullet he extracted from her was couldn’t of belonged to one of the Replica’s sidearms, the calibre was too small, it must’ve come from a civilian model. Aristide? If so, where the hell was she? He had a hard time imagining a middle-aged suit lasting too long out here. But then again, he wasn’t sure of most things anymore. He had begun to question everyone and everything, but there were no answers—at least, until Morales met  _ him _ . 

Keira was not without her admirers; surrounding the garden was a ring of misshapen, ashen shapes that used to be people. Nothing he had never seen before, they were no different from pictures he had seen in textbooks of bodies—or, more accurately, the pyroclastic casts of bodies—found in Pompeii, but seeing them in person was different. He refused to look at them, and would awkwardly turn his upwards when facing them. Maybe that was how he got the drop on him. Morales was nearly at the foot of the ramp leading to the APC when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a figure detach itself from the dusty crowd and dart for his back; he only managed to turn halfway around when a finger tapped his shoulder and a soft voice asked:

“Are you Delta?”

Morales turned around and saw a heavily stubbled, hollow-eyed man in his late twenties looking curiously at him. The stranger was dressed in dirty, black fatigues, a dented ballistic vest protected his chest, and his boots were terribly scuffed and covered in a film of white ash. There were no insignia or tags indicating who he was with. 

“Can you hear me? Are you injured?” Although his face didn’t show it, he sounded very tired. 

“Are you…” Morales swallowed. “Are you real?”

The stranger shrugged. “In the flesh.”

Another human being, one who wasn’t out to kill him, who actually wanted to speak to him, who was...real. How long has it been since he last talked to someone else? Too long, he realized, as he reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist, admiring the solidity of it, reassuring himself that it wouldn’t  _ puff _ into a cloud of dust. He was real, so why couldn’t he believe it?

“You have anything to eat?” the man asked, either ignoring or genuinely ignorant of the raw emotion Morales must’ve been showing. He absentmindedly rubbed his chin. “I could use a razor, if you have one.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m from FEAR. I am...was...my team’s point man.”

Yes, he distantly remembered hearing something about those spooks being in the area. So they were still here, or atleast, their was still a single survivor, just like Morales was all that was left of Dark Signal. Instinctively, without thinking, he embraced the point man, holding onto him for dear life lest he float away on the wind. When Morales felt him wiggle in his grip, he squeezed him tighter, burying his face in his shoulder, breathing in the smoky smell of him. He felt his shoulders heaving, his eyes watering, and, belatedly, knew that he was crying. But these were tears of joy, for this was a happy occasion. He brought the point man back to the APC and prepared him a veritable feast—rationing be damned. They gorged themselves on freeze dried ice cream and guzzled all the powdered tea Morales had been so carefully saving up, and, when it got dark and the point man thought he heard movement in the shadows, Morales drove them to an abandoned subway tunnel he had been using as a safe spot. There they helped themselves out to some warm, piss-tasting beer the point man had taken from a blasted out gas station and dried peaches. Morales couldn’t stop talking; in vivid detail, he told of what happened to his team and, when he ran out of things to say, he rambled about what he thought was happening and what he was going to do as soon as he left this god-forsaken hell town. The point man put in a few words, but never interrupted him. He silently listened, his penetrating eyes unnerving Morales, but he was too happy to have company to complain. The point man was a perfect audience, he was all eyes and ears, and he patiently waited for Morales to run out of breath before speaking.

The point man’s story was short and to the point, like a punch to the gut. Morales couldn’t believe it, but what was there to believe in anymore? By the way the point man told it, it all had to be true, and it all followed a certain perverse logic. It really wasn’t anymore unusual than what had happened to Morales over the past few months. 

“Wait, wait, wait.” Morales said needlessly, his newfound companion was sitting still and patiently listening to him grasp for words.. “Are you telling me that Alma is your fucking mother?”

The point man shrugged and gave a careless shrug. “I always suspected. Ever since Jankowski and I went to that old hospital, I’ve had these hallucinations, but they were really  _ visions _ -”

“She’s your fucking mom!?”

“Well, that’s not my fault, is it?” the point man sounded mildly annoyed. He was now busy attempting to shave with a dull, disposable razor. “If anything, we’re both victims.”

“Her? A victim? What about my man Becket?” He demanded angrily. “Don’t you give a shit about him?”

“And here I thought you were happy to see me…” The point man frowned. “I swear to God, if you still believe in one, anyway, that I’ve had no idea about this until you told me.”

Morales inhaled, counted to ten, then exhaled. “She has to have him. Becket’s a beast, he can move fast like you, can kill like you, no way he’s dead. He would’ve put up a fight. Snakefist said she...coveted him. She must be absorbing him or some shit...do you really have no idea?”

The point man shook his head. “We talk to one another in my dreams, but she never mentions what she’s up to. We’re not exactly on good terms after the...well, I told you about that…” He sighed. “Now take my word on this: I never thought the blast would be this bad, never imagined...” 

“You did what you had to do. You couldn’t of known she would survive.”

“If you say so.” The point man’s face was clean shaven; he may have been a handsome man at one time, but the lines of stress on his face, the haunted eyes, the fine layer of ash and dust he wears like makeup—all this gave him the appearance of a ghost. “But I’m not the one suffering here; what do you think about this...Becket?”

“I told you, he’s a five star badass. A-”

“You’ve known him long?”

“No...he just transferred in two weeks before the mission started.”

“Where was he born?”

“He’s not like you, if that’s what you’re asking. He remembers his parents, his home…”

“So? Where did he grow up?”

“What’s it to you? He’s not a-”

“Freak?” the point man’s eyes lit up.

“Not related to her,” Morales said adamantly. “He never said where he was born, but we didn’t share with each other our life stories. We were a special ops unit, you know how it is.”

“Oh yes,” the point man agreed, “I know what it’s like. I’ve been with all sorts of people, but that’s neither here nor there.”  He stretched himself across the row of seats and laid down, making himself comfortable. “It’s just that we are all connected. Project Harbinger, Origin, Paragon, all that...none of us are here by accident. If not by blood, your friend must be guilty by association.”

“Do you think he wanted this to happen to him? I told you, Aristide fucked with his head, put all these diodes and wires in his brain that made Alma attracted to him. It’s really not that complicated, man.”

“Have you considered that Aristide wasn’t playing Alma, but it was the other way around?” The point man rested his head on his arms. “Keegan had the same thing happen to him; intel stated his powers were just as good as Becket’s, but she drove him crazy instead. If he’s not dead, then he’s probably like Jankowski,  _ my  _ Jankowski, a sort of psychic phantom.” He hesitated, then added, “Keegan was a lure, she knew exactly what she was doing.” A rueful grin crossed his face. “Give my mother some credit.”

“You’re a fucking weirdo.”

“You should’ve seen my brother. Now talk about leaving on bad terms...”

Morales stood up, nearly hitting his head against the top panel. “I’m going out for a smoke. You rest while I keep watch, tomorrow we’re looking for Becket.”

“No.”

Morales wheeled on him. “No?”

“We don’t know where he is.” 

“You’ve got a psychic link to your mom. You ask her where he is.”

“If she  _ coveted _ your friend like you said, then it’s unlikely she’ll tell me.” The point man closed his eyes and hit a switch that dimmed the lights in the APC, he looked older in the half-light, old and tired. “Becket may be dead for all we know, and if not, he may of ended up like Keegan or Spencer Jankowski.”

“We have to look.”

“And get liquified for our troubles? It’s all I can do to avoid her grasp, and you, you wouldn’t stand a chance against her. It’s your lack of psychic talent that has saved you, but if she decides your a problem, well, your pretty much fucked.”

Morales slammed his fist against the wall, the reverberating impact failing to rouse the point man. “What else am I supposed to do? Sit on my ass? We have to try.”

“All you have to do is find someplace safe and wait this out. I have friends hiding out in the ruins, and they can help you. A war is coming, my brother told me that, and things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better.”

“That’s more of a reason why we should save him! He can help us!”

“He’s most likely beyond saving. I’m sorry, I really am. I’m regrouping with my people tomorrow and I  _ insist _ that you join me, and if not, I can’t promise you anything. I told you all that I know. Make of it what you will.”

Morales swore under his breath and opened the rear door, snatched an assault rifle off a rack, and stepped out into the gaping darkness.

“Morales? Um, Manny?” the point man sounded uncharacteristically concerned, and even a little worried. 

“What?”

“If you do see Sergeant Becket again, if he is still the man you knew, put a bullet in him. Don’t try and save him; if Alma has him, she won’t let him go.”   

Morales stared at this strange man for a long time, shook his head, then turned back to the dark. There was a click of a lighter and his cigarette was the only point of light in that long, cold and barren tunnel. He walked around the perimeter with his flashlight on, the shadows fleeing away and upwards, looming over him on the arched ceiling, and he imagined Becket was somewhere in that darkness, watching him, silently pleading...for what? Rescue...or release? 

And would he be able to provide him with either?

He asked himself that all night, and came nowhere close to an answer. He found his APC empty in the morning, the point man must’ve slipped out when his back was turned, and he was left wondering whether if all he said was true, or if it was all just a dream.

But now, standing here in this instant, he saw that it was all real, all too real. Becket was alive, in the rubble!

Never mind how he got there, or where the blood was coming from, all that mattered was getting him out. He thought of nothing else as he leapt onto the rubble and tossed it away over his shoulders, hearing it crash and thud behind him, his tongue making all sorts of nonsense all the while. 

“Can you hear me?” he shouted. “Tell me you’re okay!”

He thought he heard  a faint tapping, but he couldn’t be sure, every part of him was shaking and shuddering and he felt his heart hammering against his ribs—try as he might, he couldn’t control himself. It was still light out; a Replica or whatever kind of shithead infesting the ruins today would be able to find and cap him in seconds. “I’m going to go, Becket, alight? But only for a little while...I’ll be back, I promise.”

He hid within the depths of what used to be a library, that is, if all the crispy papers fluttering around his ankles were any indication, and he watched the day pass through a blown out window. The hours crawled by interminably, ash fell and settled in mounds by the ruined sidewalks, and must've dozed off, because when he opened his eyes he saw only what the few stray fires in the rubble allowed him to see. The pillar was there, outlined against the orange glows, a solemn, grey sentinel marred by what could be passed as graffiti, but Morales knew better. He crept out slowly, carefully, than ran across the street. 

The rubble was mostly composed of shattered stone and brick—nothing he couldn't handle. He scooped it out with his hands and sent it clattering down to the street. He wasn’t worried about noise, even Replicas and corporate mercs had to sleep once and a while, and he worked away at a steady pace, making a rough excavation around the slab of upraised concrete. He felt less like a soldier and more like an archaeologist. Hell, he thought, this place was already history. Maybe they’d dig up the ruins and talk about the terrorist attack or whatever cover story the authorities were going with, or, more likely, they’d avoid this place, rightfully claiming this place was haunted ground. It was certainly easy to believe that; he never had the hallucinations or the headaches that plagued Keegan and Becket, but not once did he feel that he was alone. Every shadow told a story, and his efforts slowed as he sunk down farther and farther into the ground, descending from street-level, out of sight and into the dubious safety of his growing hole; he was reminded of Stokes’ grave. He stopped, relaxed against the slope of the excavated defile, and wiped the cool sweat from his brow. The only sounds were his breathing, the rough sliding of unseen debris, and stray bursts of wind howling over the manmade crater’s edge—no sign of Becket, but he was going to find him, even if it meant just dragging out a body. He closed his eyes and felt the drowsiness coming on him.

The sound of stone scraping against stone, a long pause, then an echoing shatter, made him leap to his feet and withdraw his sidearm—nothing, darkness within and without. He flicked on his flashlight and saw that he was the only one here. He exhaled, and out of the corner of his eye saw a gaping black stain against the rough ground. He crawled on hands and knees towards it, the flashlight gripped in his mouth, and he found that it was an entranceway to a maintenance tunnel. It must’ve been accidentally uncovered during his digging around. He pointed the flashlight down and watched in disbelief as the feeble beam was consumed by the yawning void below. He fumbled around for a flare, got one out, lit it, and tossed it down. Everything was lit by a pulsating, rosy glow that was magnified by the cramped confines of the corridor, but not too cramped that a he couldn’t fit in…It was a risk though; he’d have to take off his vest and go in with only a pistol to fit in, but what else could he do? An opportunity like this didn’t come once. 

_ She can’t hurt me,  _ he assured himself,  _ I’m not psychic, I don’t have anything to offer, she doesn’t give a shit about me _ . He’d be practically invisible to her; she didn’t care about Stokes, so why would be be any different? He took a deep breath,  _ here goes nothing _ ...he placed his vest by the hole, sucked in his gut, and carefully angled his way through. That’s all there was for it. 

The first flare was still heartily fizzling away between his legs and he made out that the end closest to him was caved in; there was only one way to go, down his right hand side. It was tight here; he had to lift his shoulders and awkwardly shimmy half-sideways down the narrow passageway. At least he brought along with him a sizeable load of flares, he lit them periodically, leaving behind a hissing path.  _ Like breadcrumbs in the forest _ . There was a rusty pipe about level with his forehead, and he figured that this tunnel must’ve been used to access the old gas lines in the city. This was Auburn after all, wasn’t it? The old part of town? He kept moving, to stay still and think was an invitation for panic, he had to keep moving at all costs. It was cool here, the burning flares doing little to warm the place, and he gulped down lungfuls of stale air. He resisted the urge to shout for Becket...what with him probably being unconscious or in shock. 

At least, that’s what he told himself.

He kept his head turned towards the direction he was coming from, he only a glanced forwards a few times. The first few flares he laid down were sputtering out, and he saw his point of origin becoming shrouded in obscurity. How was he going to get out of here once he got his hands on Becket? He had a hard enough time getting through here...No, forced those thoughts away. Stay on task Manny, stay on task. He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw he didn’t seem to be anywhere near the end. He was almost out of flares. He took one out and wondered how far he could throw it down the passageway when he heard it. This cramped space was alive with the sibilant fizzling of the flares, but the new sound was unmistakable, and coming from the right, where he was going. 

He heard a baby crying.

What the fuck? His steps faltered and he looked up and down, to no avail. There was no sign of anyone except for him. The crying was coming from down the corridor, rising and falling in volume, oscillating wildly in pitch. There was no choice but to go towards it. He had to go on. He braced himself and shuffled on down. The cries faded underneath his scuffling bootheels, until he could just barely hear an indistinct whimpering, then that too went away. The ensuing silence seemed all the more oppressive, hanging over him and magnifying his pitiful efforts, the little pistol that now felt all the more lighter in his hands. Without really knowing why, he tried to move more quietly, taking short breaths and flattening himself against the wall. He had to go on.

He stopped and caught his breath, fatigued, and saw that, based on the number of flares he left behind, he really didn’t travel that far. There was only one flare left; nodding to himself, weighing the options, he decided to take a risk. Awkwardly fumbling in the dark, blinking past cold sweat dripping down his brow, he transferred the lone flare to his dominant hand, putting the pistol in the left, and tossed the lit flare not behind, but ahead of him. He stared overhead, where the shadows still reigned, avoiding the exploding glare.

And looked down to see a wide open space.

It was not natural: the walls were covered in what appeared to be an intricate layer of black vines or cables that stretched upwards, all the way into a dizzying void. They seemed to slither and curl around flare like an organic mass, but he was sure that it was just a trick of the ebbing light. Pretty sure, anyway. He placed a tentative step forwards, then another; the ground was soft beneath his soles. No one rushed to greet him. Alright, he breathed easy, all fucking right. His limbs were free from the passage’s vice and he swept the pistol around, its sights encompassing the entirety of the room, finding nothing. He didn’t know how to feel about that; he was relieved to be alone, but he was hoping to find Becket here, and the preceding journey had done much to dissuade him from going any further. Not that there was any further; he didn’t see any other entrance, just the vine-choked walls. He crossed the floor, and cautiously touched one of them, and was surprised to find that the particular thing he reached out for was stiff to the touch, hard, and felt rough as he ran his hand down its length. 

Like a tree root.

He gasped and jumped back, hitting and spinning the flare around and making the entire network of roots dance around in the strobing air. Overwhelmed by the sight, he backed away until he tripped over something and fell on his ass with an echoing thud. He grappled with the flashing shadows, feeling around for something solid to help him lift himself up, and clutched a fisftull of flesh. 

Letting go and turning around, he caught a glimpse of Becket’s face. Blank eyes stared listlessly back, the lips were thin and blue, and a fresh shadow leaped across the wan visage.

“Michael!” he screamed, all reservations and worries evaporating from his mind. “I got you, man!” He grabbed the flare and brought it over to where Becket was, or what was left of him, was. The strong, determined, fearless soldier he had known was long gone. If it wasn’t for his survivor’s intuition, he wouldn’t of known that it even was Becket. The lost man could only be described as  _ drained _ —thick stubble ran wild over his narrow jaw and hollow cheeks, dark hair, left unchecked for too long, hung down either side of his face and became intertwined with the black coiling roots trapping him to the wall. The hands were free, curled and crusted with dry blood, but healing. His complexion was bone-white, limpid, veins criss-crossed what sun deprived skin was still exposed. But even worse than his appearance was that Becket was alive, so damnably alive, like he had been preserved by an insane and negligent caretaker.  _ The prisoner is choked by the bars of his cell; his hair turns white and his skin sallow, but the nails grow... _ Morales held out his hand and felt his friend’s weak breath against his palm; he pushed the same hand into the coils of fiber and felt a perfectly healthy heartbeat against tattered fatigues. Alive...alive and healthy! He had lost plenty of weight, was cool to the touch, but still possessed a regular pulse. Roots held him fast to the wall, propping him up and maybe keeping him alive. “I’m getting you out, don’t worry.” 

Morales took out his combat knife and sawed away at the binds of this living prison, but it may’ve been a butter knife for all it did. “Don’t worry, buddy, you’re alright.” He yanked at the roots, no use. He grunted, holstered his sidearm, pressed one foot against the wall, and hauled on it with both hands, but they held to the wall like chains. He stomped his feet in frustration and and slammed his fists against the wall.  _ So close _ ...never had there been a sadder phrase.  _ Think, Manny, think! _ Didn’t certain Replica troops carry around laser weapons? He could steal one, take it down here, and slice Becket free. “Don’t go anywhere,” Morales told him, and turned around just in time to see the first flare extinguish itself. 

He didn’t think anything of it; the farther most flare had been burning for a while, so it made sense that it would burn itself out. “Don’t worry, Mich-” The next flare sizzled out of existence, smothered by an unseen hand, then another, and another, until freshly laid flares in the middle of the passage dropped out of sight. Morales tore the sidearm free and aimed it down the corridor. “Becket! You hear me? We gotta get out man!” No response. Morales rushed to his friend and savagely slapped him across the face. “I can’t help you if you won’t help me! Wake up!” Morales risked a glance over his shoulder, and saw the flares, one by one, being swallowed up by an unstoppable wall of blackness. The confined, subterranean space was alive with a mammoth hissing, growing louder and louder, deafening him. “She’s coming!” Morales bellowed over the noise. “It’s Alma!”

That made Becket’s eyelids flutter, and when they stilled, Morales saw the familiar steely gaze, the one he saw on Becket’s healthier face when he set off for the amplification chamber. Chapped lips parted and he croaked and rattled off something inarticulately, but there was a trace, a faint note, of the man he used to be.              

“Michael!”

The light was dying, the few shafts of illumination trembled on the walls before disappearing, and Becket’s face grew more indistinct. He stared in Morales’ general direction. “Help.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do.” He was aware of a third presence, invisible and malignant, rapidly flying in his direction. He remembered stories of artillery shells falling right on top of people; the victims never heard the means of their destruction due to the way the sound waves dispersed over and away from them, they only felt their hearts beating, faster and faster until the end. “Try getting out yourself, man.”

Becket groaned and made a feeble effort, succeeding in snaring himself further. He seemed to recede out of sight, and he looked helplessly, pleadingly, out of the growing gloom at Morales. “Kill me.”

_ It would be far kinder to put a bullet in his head. _ He chambered a round and drew a bead on Becket’s forehead. 9mm, hollow-point, one round would be enough to send his brains erupting out the back of his head. Becket was fading away, his face a pale smudge against the dark, and Morales knew that he only had one shot at this...no pun intended. The polymer grip shook in his clasped hands, phosphorescent sights jittered, and he knew that he was never going to be able to pull the trigger. He lowered the gun. “I’ll be back. I promise.” He took Becket’s dog tags and snapped them off his neck. That way he could at least get something out.

An ear-splitting shriek, equal parts rage and grief, and undeniably a woman’s, invaded the small space and bombarded his senses. Flinching, shirking away from the noise, he retreated and to the far wall and climbed up, easily finding purchase on what felt like a large trestle. Surely she wouldn’t be able to detect him, but it wouldn’t hurt to get out of the way. Up he went, into the dizzying heights, away from the hysterical outburst below. She can’t see me, he assured himself as he went higher and higher, I don’t have any psychic potential, so she’ll ignore me. 

Razors slide along the contours of his skull, deafening and disturbingly intimate. No pair of lungs, tongue, lips or anything physical could’ve made it: 

_ YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME _

That wasn’t addressed to him, at least. It wasn’t fear that overwhelmed him, but guilt. It sounded like Becket was in for one hell of a punishment.

_ YOU WILL NOT RUN AWAY _

Not like Becket’s going anywhere, he thought wryly.

_ GET DOWN HERE _

Well...shit. So much for his theory...or maybe it was still sound? She knew he was in the area, but not his exact location if her demands were anything to go by. The final flare died, but it was no matter, it actually made him feel safer now. There had to be an opening above him. Earlier he had seen how all manner of rents, fissures, and cracks contributed to the crumbling decay of Fairport, and chances were he'd be able to escape through one of them. The point man was still screwing around somewhere; he would grab the weirdo and haul his ass down here, force him to deal with this mess. 

Morales nearly lost his footing, and from then on he took his time ascending to the surface. His scalp brushed against concrete, nowhere left to run. He squinted upwards, letting his eyes adjust, and he saw it—a slim shaft of light a few inches away from him. Freedom. 

As if sensing his discovery, the wailing halted, replaced by a heavy, husky panting propelling itself upwards. With one hand and both feet still on a branch, he swung outwards and gripped the edge of this newfound portal. It was a fight against gravity now. He resisted its call, grabbing the side with his other hand and, planting his feet firmly in the bark, pushed himself up and through the means to his salvation. 

He landed on a debris strewn floor, discarded syringes and medical trays crunching beneath his weight, and he rolled himself clear of the opening. He bounced against a wall and stood up, shaking dust out of his hair, and saw that he was in what appeared to be a ruined bathroom. A swinging stall-door revealed a rough hewn hole where a toilet used to be. How glamorous. It was quiet. He flicked his flashlight on, waved it about, and saw that no one had followed him. He slipped out into a hallway hemmed in by stained, cracked tiles and overturned gurneys. A hospital? The flashlight's beam danced along no smoking signs and busted intercoms...and an odd picture of a bald man with missing eyes. Definitely one of the more bizarre anatomical diagrams he's ever seen. 

He brought the beam down and saw that the picture was hanging above a door, an odd place. He showed the light up again and saw not the image, but the scintillating remains of a shattered window…

The hall came alive with his bitter swearing, and he ran down the length of it to a what he prayed to be an exit. The beam, a fuzzy halo of light, rapidly rose and fell over a multitude of pinewood planks, crucified to the crumbling decay with crooked, rusty nails. He launched himself against the wide pair of metal doors and found they wouldn't bend an inch under his weight. He wheeled around, seeing nothing, feeling everything—the thick air laden with age, the cool nocturnal breath against his neck, the weight of empty eye sockets waiting for his next move. It was Redd’s brother, it had to be, so why was he after him? Did the wraith even know who he was? No time to come up with answers. Most of the doors had long since been boarded up; distressing, but it limited his options, making it easier to choose. He kicked at the door closest to him, felt pain shoot up through his leg, and he limped to the next one and tried that. The knob turned but the door wouldn’t budge, a weight must’ve been stacked against it on the other side. Leg still aching, he stumbled from one side to the other, searching in vain for a means for escape, all the while carrying the dread certainty that the spectre he had caught a mere glimpse of was watching him, maybe taunting him, letting him struggle for its amusement. 

His surroundings were different somehow. Either the hallway was endless, which could not be, or he was not moving as fast as he out to be. Never before had he felt like he was trapped in a nightmare. It was all crazy, no denying that, but there were explanations for all of it. The intel gathered confirmed it. He had no idea where he was, he did not see the bathroom he went out of. The light’s battery was running out, and he didn’t dream of stopping and searching for a new one. A fallen intravenous pole snagged his foot and he fell across the floor, sprawling at the feet of a silhouette, its shade somehow darker than black, and he rolled onto his back, crossing his arms to protect himself. 

The expected blow did not fall. He peered up at an open doorway, hinges alluring in their nakedness. He saw freedom. He crossed the threshold without hesitation, imagining a disembodied pair of white hands snatching at empty air just as he made it clear. As further insurance against being followed, he made a series of random turns; going left, right, then backtracking before conducting another set of maneuvers. He had lost his flashlight sometime during his flight, but moonbeams were starting to pour through the pockmarked ceiling that was coming lower and lower. He was going in the right direction, he had to be. Over a large opening devoid of any obstacles, one such beam fell along the mantle, highlighting the stenciled label of HYDROTHERAPY. He took this as a good sign, and he passed under that word. 

Dripping water; airy notes of night winds coursing through glistening tubes; the more distant cacophony of metal scraping against metal. He blinked, seeing a complicated network of pipes and knobs materialize around a floating assortment of glowing, cracked dials. Large tubs, sickly green with oxidation, covered the length of the room. Passing them, he heard the rhythmic lapping of water. Gross. He’d give life and limb for a bath, but not in this filth. He couldn’t imagine what scum was floating around now; shit was probably radioactive at this point. Funny that it didn’t smell too bad in here.           

His thoughts were broken by a loud bubbling from the nearest tub, the noise amplified by its curved sides. Against his better judgement, he turned to confront the sound with sidearm in hand, the other curled in a fist, and he saw the dripping point man. Turgid cascaded down his lean, naked frame; empty eyes, unbothered by the attention, stared past him just as when they first met. The FEAR operator's body was pale and hairless, a rosy pink where layers of ash and dust was presumably raked off. His wet hair was glossy and dark. He did not say anything. 

Morales laughed uneasily. “Caught you off guard, didn't I?”

The point man blinked, his faced swiveled over an ivory neck in his direction. He blinked again, as if becoming aware of Morales’ existence for the first time. 

“Earth to point man, is anyone home?” Morales was giddy with relief that he was no longer alone in this dismal place. “I got great news, I found him. Becket. He looks like shit, but something is keeping him alive.”

“Quiet,” he grated

Morales took an involuntary step backwards, taken aback by his coolness. The point man was an icy one, yet there was something undeniably hostile in his tone.

Morales wasn't sure he wanted to be around him. Still, he needed him. “I blew it. I couldn't get him out. But you can, right? He's still human, and we don't move right now he'll be gone like Keegan.”

“You didn't think of shooting him?” 

Was he...accusing him? After recommending such an awful thing in the none too distant past. Morales tensed. 

“No,” he said after a while. “Never.”

The prototype's pallid lips made barest trace of a smile. “Hhm.”

“Well get your gear on and lets get out of here. Jankowski's here.”

“He's harmless. Lost, that's all,” he said distractedly, seemingly uninterested in the whole conversation. “Didn't you say that Becket was a last minute addition to your team? Isn't that odd.” These words were mocking, playful. “He had quite the first day.” He shook his head. “What are the chances?”

_ Has he gone batshit?  _ “Alright, lets regroup. Lets see those friends of yours. And you know what? Let's get out of here. There are old utility tunnels we can use. I'll show you.”

“Is that so…”

“We can call in the whole fucking army. Get the rest of your organization here, if you think that'll help. We can come back with a new, fully prepared team.”

The point man leaned over the rim of the tub; very slightly, but way too close for his liking.The thin line of his lips opened, revealing twin rows of perfect white teeth.  

“I was the one who found the remains of the Delta team they sent into Armacham’s headquarters,” he said in a confiding way, suggesting that he wanted his confidante to ask him about it, but Morales was pointedly silent. He continued unperturbed, “Did they ever tell you exactly what happened to them? No...I don’t think so. Don’t be surprised...your...look betrays you.” He laid his fingers on the rim and tapped for emphasis. “I’ll give you a hint, since we’re such good friends and all,” he tittered, “they were all over the place, Manny, like you wouldn’t believe. Floor, walls,  _ ceiling _ . Enough to fill this bathtub. You should've been their...or perhaps not. ”

“What is wrong with you?” Morales backed away from the looming thing, absolutely disgusted by its very presence. “What the hell is wrong with you? You think all that’s funny? Those were fathers, husbands, and your laughing it up.”

“Fathers,” he spat the word out. “I hate them, like you wouldn’t believe, I hate them. I didn’t mean to, never expected to when I found them, but I saw their lives back home and it was all done by itself, all of their own doing. I wanted to kill the bastards for not being me. What do you think of that? Am I a monster? Let me feel what you feel.”

Morales didn’t hear the last few questions. He raged for his fallen comrades, against this test tube motherfucker taunting him over the their loss, and the gun rattled in his clenched fist. He had to remind himself that he had better things to do; there was no time to waste in beating the point man’s grinning skull in.

“Don’t worry. When I dream of mother, I’ll tell her to be gentle with poor Michael.”

Morales let out an inarticulate shout and marched on the point man, not really having an idea what he was going to do but somehow, someway, he was going to make him pay dearly for that remark. He swore at the protype savagely, making the clone cock his head in curiosity, beckoning him. He stopped a few paces away from the tub.

And that was enough.

Smiling openly, the point man spread his arms and bent forwards to embrace him, bringing him to his gelid flesh. Morales yelped at the touch and brought up his hands to push him away, and they laid against a set of desiccated breasts.  _ What’s the matter, Manny?  _ Greasy hair smothered him. She squeezed the breath out of him, locking him in an inhuman vice and pulling him over the side. He thrashed in her grip, kicking his legs and twisting around. Black water sloshed around them and spilled over the side. The peace of the room was broken by muffled thumps and splashing water, his grunts and groans. The pistol! He still had it! He raised it out of the murk, praying that it still worked, but a lance of fire seared up his spine, arching his back in pain. Images of Fox, Griffin...Keegan, past by in the moonlit panic. Long white arms pressed the strength out of him. How was Becket ever able to resist this?

_ Come die with me. _

And with that they took the death plunge. The ensnared victim submerged by the irresistible black water, and together they left behind a final echoing splash. Something heavy thumped within the copper tub; a small, tinny  _ ping  _ pressed a conical section of the metal outwards, and then the dripping ambiance returned to reign over all. A forlorn shape carrying a perpetual gaze floated through without a care, passing through an unseen exit and leaving all to the rust and decay. 

It was as if no one was ever there. 

***

Michael Becket wasn't sad. Disappointed, yes, but not sad; the melancholy had been with him so long he stopped noticing. For the first time, her world was bathed in cool colors. The sky was a low, sombre purple that weighed heavily on him, propped up by a sooty horizon, its limits hazy. It was chilly on the dunes. He wondered if there was a way to bury himself under the cooling sands and lay dormant forever. A useless dream; even if he could, she'd dig him out. He was foolish to think he'd be able to escape. He understood that now, but it still hurt. He kept solace in the fact that Manny knew what had happened to him, understood that he had never wanted to leave. His squadmate got away, hopefully. He keenly felt the migranal tides of her impending arrival. What more could she want? Hadn't she taken everything? Maybe this would be the final meeting, at the conclusion of which she would dispose of him for losing his usefulness. But knew, with an apathetic resignation, that it was not to be. 

Such thoughts did nothing to help the trepidation gripping his heart. Any second now. 

She flickered into existence, wearing her drowned form, which was a relief. That meant she didn't want more out of him. She already had her (not his, never his) damned kid, after all. He remained where he was, sitting above her on a high-topped mound of sand. Maybe she'd lose her temper and vaporize him if he didn't respond. Wouldn't that be lovely. 

_ I'm not mad you.  _ She gestured for him to come down.  _ I have something to show you. _

He had an idea of what that could be. He felt his heart tumble down his chest, leaving a hollow sensation. He could already imagine it, but he had to know. 

It was cold down between the dune, the ground here never having known the diluted warmth from above. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you want now?”

_ You.  _

“No.”

She quietly regarded him, then moved out of his way, nodding to something halfway buried, something both new and familiar. 

There lay the partially exposed remains of Manuel Morales.  _ Manny _ . Grains of sand clung to his shattered visage. One glassy eye was still open beneath curls matted in filth. A gunshot wound, if he had to guess. Not what he was expecting. The emptiness within spread out, engulfing him. He settled down on his knees and touched his friend’s neck. This was very unusual of her. He looked up inquiringly.

_ Genevieve Aristide. She’s been looking for you, and found your friend instead _ .  _ She brokered an agreement with her superiors. _

He didn’t believe a word of it, but he nodded, keeping his eyes on hers while while his probing fingers, out of her sight, searched for something under the blood-stiff collar of Manny’s buried fatigues. He thought of meaningless fantasies—visceral dreams of cold blooded revenge against that bitch who ruined his life and so many others, hiding the deeper drive. He said aloud, “Where is she?”

_ Someplace safe...for now. _ She laid a clammy hand on his shoulder.  _ I can give her to you, and you can do whatever you want. _

Alma Wade was never one for charity. He frowned, wondering if she could even recognize the expression. 

_Your love, your love. That’s all I want. One son betrayed me, the other failed me. Don’t be like the others._ Her hand left his shoulder and caressed his cheek. He nearly gagged. _Don’t be like them. We only have each other now._ _We are a family. You cannot break that._

Under cloth, he found a thin, strong chain. “I want to wake up.”

_ You can _ . Her lipless mouth locked in a grimace.  _ If you won’t run. If you promise me _ .

Submission and a chance for revenge, or a lifetime in Alma’s personal hell. Shame and guilt washed over him in equal measures, watering the corpse beneath him. His buried hand jerked and he felt the chain snap, he gathered it in his closed palm. Hate. He wouldn’t do this for her, or him, for he was gone now. Another anonymous casualty of an unrecognized war. Not for anyone else, but for hate’s sake. If he was to be damned, than so shall Aristide. 

He rose to meet her. There was only one final indignity he had to go through. He cupped her thin face, his fingers entwined in her hair; felt amniotic fluid, water, grease, flakes of dry blood, and who knew all what else gather under his nails, and he brought her close.  _ Oh fuck! Oh fuck! I’m sorry Manny! It’s for good cause, I swear!  _ He awkwardly mashed his lips against hers. Okay, enough is enough, but she thought otherwise—bony arms wrapped around his waist and pressed him against her. Her moldy slug of a tongue slithered between his lips and ran along his teeth. He fought down a wave of nausea.  _ Don’t judge me, Manny! _

They parted, she smiling at him fondly as he gasped for breath.

_ We _ , she relished the word,  _ have work to do _ .  _ I’ll prepare. _ Her form shimmered and dispersed, like mirage.  _ Don’t go anywhere.  _

“Come back soon...dear.”

She winked at him, and with that, she was gone. 

Becket spent the next hour and a half taking turns between dry heaving and giving Manny a proper burial in a nearby slack where the winds wouldn't bother him. It was a useless exercise; she would make Manny disappear like she had done with all the other stray vestiges of the real world, make it so that no evidence remained of him ever having a life before her. She would try to replace Manny, like she had tried to do with Keira. But they would never leave him. For as long as he lived, they'd live on in that part of himself where she couldn't reach. He retrieved the dog tags he had snuck off Manny's corpse and held them up to the fading light. (He had also found his own tags Morales had taken from him too; these he put in a pocket, unsure what to do with them.) 

“How come you didn't kill me?” he asked as a sea of darkness filled the low area, rising to the sandy peaks. 

“Why didn't you let me die?”

***

The ash-choked sky and falling snow has turned Fairport into a very different kind of wasteland. Frost-rimmed shards of shattered glass winked at animated shadows twitching up and down the street, their movements jerky, their shape vaguely human. Eddies of dust swirled around empty courtyards. It's quiet. It's as if the Replica and Armacham forces have called an unofficial truce; fighting has been scaled down to a few sporadic cracks and thumps in the distance. An explosion will blossom over a section of the skyline, at rare times, to break up the monotony. 

A solitary figure crept his way through the frozen twilight, giving the animated shadows a wide berth and taking plenty of detours, but moving with a single-minded purpose. He wore a looted parka over frayed fatigues. The antiquated facade of the City Hall came into his view and, presently, loomed over him. Icicles hung from the cornices; decapitated gargoyles roosted over the eaves. Peering out from under a burnt out bus, he took it all in, looking in particular for the tell-tale signs of snipers. But no one was here, apparently. No one but him. He waited for about half an hour, just in case, then sprinted to the entrance. 

He took the chipped marble steps two at a time, jumped across the porch and laid a hand on the door handle, feeling death seeping through his gloves and mittens. He tensed up. Between him and this slim partition was a certain carrion warmth, the kind he had so often been stifled by. He had been expecting it, he had dreamt of it, experienced it, but hadn't counted on being here while everything was so fresh. Jin and Holiday warned him against this, and were almost ready to physically restrain him when he insisted on leaving, but, ultimately, they couldn't stop him. How could they? He was the only one keeping them alive in this hellscape, if not out of kindness, then out of some ill-defined obligation. They were friends, he supposed; certainly more tolerable to be around than his family. He tried the handle. Loose. He took a deep breath and saw the snowflakes suspended in still air, then the splinters slowly somersaulting as he kicked the door down. The report of snapping wood coming what seemed to be seconds after his bootheel made contact. His heartbeat was a low rumbling in his ears. His reflexes were still their. If anything, they had actually heightened over the past months, becoming sharper and longer-lasting. The door wafted away as if carried on a gentle breeze, and he was rushing and through, raising the submachine gun, and he skidded on his heels across the gore-slick floor of a slaughterhouse. 

Nothing was hidden. A noisy generator was thrumming away below him, powering the lights (electric LED lights!) that relentlessly shined on the bodies, carelessly scattered all over the place without sense or reason. Most were in tatters, scarlet streamers left over from a particularly violent party, and those were nothing compared to the bodies that had been split open—lacerated, from the inside. Oh God. The entrance hall was littered with remains. Various limbs poked out from under the banisters on the shrouded galleries. It was much more poorly lit above, all the lights crowded down here, giving it all the appearance of a stage. He picked his way through to to main stairway, peeking around the balustrade and finding more intact bodies—corporate mercs by the look of their outfits—slumped on the steps. He ascended them one at a time, feeling horribly exposed, and his feet stirred shell casings, clattering them against one another. Did all these people do this to each other? No, he inspected the wounds; whoever done this was someone like himself, someone who underwent special training. All these mercs were neatly double-tapped: two short, controlled bursts to the chest. Simple and efficient. And that shooter could still be on the landing above, waiting for him. Christ, how he hated stairs; they offered no cover and complete exposure. It would be ridiculously for even the lowliest corporate rent-a-cop to lean over the side and cap him. Heightened reflexes could only do so much. He tiptoed on up, but the steps kept creaking and the bodies blocked him at every turn. He was completely psyched by the time he reached the top floor. Dented filing cabinets were knocked over, gaping mouths divesting their contents all over piles of broken furniture. The remnants of a hastily put together barricade. It was likely they didn’t have time to finish before the force rose up and struck them down.

The Seal of the City of Fairport, framed by a hallo of bullet holes, hung askew over the mayor’s office, just as it had been in his dreams. This was the focus point: all would be revealed beyond the shattered glass door. 

Supply crates, a low table lined with monitors scrolling ineligible lines of text, ashtrays and empty cartons of snacks all told him that this was their headquarters. The only body in here was that of a civilian woman in a rumpled suit; propped up on a chair, lounging on a leather chair, head bent at an impossible angle, limbs dangling from dislocated joints. This twisted thing used to be the leader of this outfit, an ambitious executive rewarded her tireless efforts. Lines of pain were etched across her face, she was terribly bruised, and her upturned mouth was locked in a silent scream. He remembered Moody, way back when, a memory of a previous life. He searched the place and found what he expected: nothing. Either there was nothing to begin with or, more likely, someone took it. The same person who had shot everyone down on the staircase. Now it was time to do what he hoped not to. He approached the suit quietly, as if afraid to wake her up, and sifted through her pockets. All empty. He patted her down, then stopped, hands still outstretched. They rose and gently lifted a necklace off her neck, but he was wrong. It was a thin chain with a single tag attached. Rubbing off flakes of dried blood with his thumb, he saw the name:

BECKET MICHAEL

He was falling, a chasm opened inside himself and he was going through through headfirst, the arm did not belong to him, his vision blurred around the edges, the tag grew more distinct, the stamped words searing across his awareness. Dread, naked and undisguised, swallowed him up. The poor bastard was alive? He refused to accept it, just as he had refused to believe when the Origin Facility was tearing itself up all around him, his mother’s voice ringing in his ears. Somehow, enough sense still remained for him to turn the tag over where a new, sloppy message was crudely scratched:

GA PERSEUS SORRY

There was more, but it was so hastily done that there was no time to make any sense. Not that he needed, or wanted to, read anymore. These three words explained everything in abominable detail.  _ Perseus _ ...he ignored all else... _ Perseus _ .  _ The Perseus Compound! Where Paxton grew up, where the Replicas are grown in their nutrient vats. That’s their destination _ . The tag slipped from his fingers, he did not hear them land. Without Origin, Perseus was the only facility still running, still, as this message suggests, operational. Someone with the drive, with the know how, could easily build a small army, if given enough time. And what would Alma, a being filled with hate and who knew nothing but tragedy and abuse, of cruelty on an inhuman scale, what would she do with such power? She couldn’t control them all: she was too imprecise, destructive, lacking the finesse necessary to coordinate the efforts of a battalion of souls. Anway, having others do her work wasn’t her style. She favored a hands on approach. And Paxton Fettel was gone, his sinuses thoroughly flushed by his older brother, but what about Harbinger? Hasn’t a more suitable, a less expensive, been provided? Becket was alive, he had hidden his tag, his furtively scrawled message, on this corpse. Morales, if he had succeeded in finding his friend, had failed to adhere to his advice. 

_ And I have failed. I didn’t even bother to try; I didn’t care enough. If I arrived here sooner, if I confronted them, I could’ve stopped this _ .

He uttered a single phrase, the same two syllables that had escaped his lips after he condemned a city to a fate worse than death in a vain effort to eliminate the last member of his cursed lineage, after his means of escape was brought down to the ruined city and he realized that he would never be able to escape from his past.  _ A war is coming _ , his brother had said,  _ I’ve seen it in my dreams _ . And just as his dream of the city hall, his brother’s dream was going to come true.   

He and Becket had tried to prevent it and, like characters in a tragedy, inadvertently brought it closer to fruition. They were a couple of puppets dancing to a sadist's strings. Pawns, nothing more, nothing less. Toy soldiers doing what they can't help doing. 

“Uh-oh.” 

_ The end... _

_ or is it???? _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Never thought I'd write a fic a decade late but here we are...
> 
> Playing the Resident Evil 2 Remake got me all nostalgic for all the old horror series I love like System Shock (which might come back), Dead Space (RIP), and FEAR - I have very mixed feelings about this series. First game had the best gameplay but I really liked Project Origin's story. The plot for the first game had a lot of good ideas like cloning, psychic stuff, and corporate/political shenanigans behind the scenes, but never really capitalized on those concepts. Point Man, a stand in for the player, mostly spent the game rampaging in offices and warehouses while getting spooked by Paxton and Alma. He picked up phones sometimes. All good fun but not very engaging. Paxton never felt like a serious antagonist; he just spent the game being vaguely threatening and spouting cryptic nonsense at the Point Man before getting his head popped. Project Origin was drastically different and I was really into where the story was going, but the third game basically threw away all those narrative threads for no good reason. Morales, Aristide, and the Senator were all forgotten and Alma was turned into a plot device.
> 
> This fic was sort of a reaction against that. Also, I really enjoyed Toy Soldiers by arienai (who I owe so much for) and that really encouraged me to do this. I'd love to make this into a series but I'm working on a bunch of other fan and original things so I don't know when that will happen. 
> 
> If you enjoyed the misery, don't worry, it's going to get worse :^) ! ! !


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